How to build a simple but cool IR (Infra Red) receiver.

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First download the software from the lirc website. I strongly recommend not to use any .deb or .rpm package as they tend to make everything more complicated.
Go to the Lirc page and download the most recent package. Untar it with the command:

tar jxvf lirc-0.6.6.tar.bz2

and start the semi-graphical setup:

./setup

You should only select your serial port and leave all the other settings. Select the 3rd menu entry, "Save configuration and run configure", wait until it has finished, then give (as root):